Pat Munts

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News >  Spokane

Gardening: Winter provides time for planning gardens, outdoor areas

Thu., Jan. 3, 2019

Happy New Year, everyone. So here we are looking at a brand-new year and as always lots of new ideas for gardening. Winter is a great time to check them out and lay plans to incorporate them into the garden in the spring.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Weed out overly generalized seed catalogs

Thu., Dec. 27, 2018

The rush of Christmas is over. For many gardeners this means the real winter has settled, and it’s time to haul out the stack of reading material that has been accumulating since last spring. In between the books and magazines we have to catch up on is a growing stack of seed and plant catalogs that began arriving in late November.

News >  Spokane

Pat Munts: A trip through the garden yields decor for the front door

Thu., Dec. 20, 2018

I’ve been taking advantage of our warmer than usual weather to knock out a few more garden projects before the garden gets buried in snow and everything freezes to the ground.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Songbirds quiet, but bald eagles continue to soar

Thu., Dec. 13, 2018

Our neighborhood communication app was buzzing this past week with people wondering where all the winter resident songbirds have gone. Feeders around the Painted Hills and Ponderosa neighborhoods have been very quiet the past month.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: During winter’s approach, squirrels are still on the move

Thu., Dec. 6, 2018

As the cold settled in this weekend, not much was stirring around our garden. The resident deer herd was nowhere to be seen. A few birds could be heard but our feeders have been very quiet this fall.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Ecological diversity marks I-90 drive

Thu., Nov. 29, 2018

Pat Munts observes the changing landscape on her return drive from the West Side to Eastern Washington over the holiday weekend.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: Mower can be integral in seasonal leaf removal

Wed., Nov. 21, 2018

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Today we will celebrate with family and friends around a table with more calories than we deserve. So how do we burn those off before they become permanently attached to our bodies? For those of you who haven’t gotten around to raking leaves yet, here is an easy way to get the job done with a minimum of effort and help your garden beds in the process.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Planting amaryllis now and enjoy yule blooms, Pat Munts writes

Thu., Nov. 1, 2018

The holiday season may seem to be a bit far off but now is the time to plant amaryllis and paperwhite narcissus so they will be ready for the holidays.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: Frost, fewer daylight hours trigger flora’s fall beauty

Thu., Oct. 25, 2018

We are having a spectacular fall. Just enough frost to turn the leaves. No wind or rain to knock them off yet and bright sunny days to enjoy all the color. But what makes the trees turn color?

News >  Spokane

Gardening: How-to guide for storing season’s harvest

Thu., Oct. 18, 2018

So, how do you store all of this fall bounty. It’s not hard if you pay attention to a few simple guidelines, Pat Munts writes.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: National dahlia judge receives September Garden of the Month award

Thu., Oct. 11, 2018

Claudia Biggs, a national dahlia judge, has received the September Garden of the Month award for her dahlia garden.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Pruning: Is this the right time?

Thu., Oct. 4, 2018

The big question that seems to be on a lot of people’s minds right now is when to prune what.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: As it grows cold, consider row covering, mulching and harvesting

Thu., Sept. 27, 2018

Our gardening season is winding down.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: It’s time to think about saving seeds from favorite vegetables, flowers, Pat Munts says

Thu., Sept. 20, 2018

It’s time to think about saving seeds from your favorite vegetables and flowers.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Spokane Valley resident Carmen Perkins’ acre patch is named August garden of month

Thu., Sept. 13, 2018

Spokane Valley gardener Carmen Perkins has been recognized by the Inland Empire Gardeners. The group has named her garden the August garden of the month.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Spokane Edible Tree Project helps homeowners to give to hunger relief groups

Thu., Sept. 6, 2018

Do you havefruit trees you don’t have time or energy to care for and harvest? Do you feel guilty seeing the fruit go to waste? If so, help for caring and harvesting the apples, cherries, plums, walnuts, hazelnut, peaches and apricots can be had by registering your trees with the Spokane Edible Tree Project.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: Tree with damaged trunk will seal off injured area to protect healthy bark

Thu., Aug. 30, 2018

It started with squalling tires and a big bang.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: Cooler weather brings humidity, risk of powdery mildew

Thu., Aug. 23, 2018

The weather appears to be cooling a bit. Temperatures are dropping from the 90s into the 80s and 70s this weekend with nights in the lower 50s. Throw in a bit of humidity and you have perfect weather for the formation of powdery mildew.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: Yellow jackets, hornets, wasps hunting for sugar now

Thu., Aug. 16, 2018

It’s yellow jacket and wasp season and they seem to be particularly annoying this year. Even the firefighters out on the wildfire lines are being painfully plagued by them.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: From 2015 windstorm to whimsical landscape – July garden of month earns perfect 10s

Thu., Aug. 9, 2018

Sometimes good things happen when trees come crashing down in a garden. Such is the case for Russ and Sara Weaver-Lundberg.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Preserve your harvest for winter months

Thu., Aug. 2, 2018

What do you do when you have more tomatoes, beans, corn, peppers, squash, eggplant, peas or cabbage than you can eat in a few days? Preserve it for the long days of winter when we are buried in snow. Freezing, drying and canning like our mothers and grandmothers used to do is making a comeback in this world of prepackaged food.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: It’s a good time to get to work on that fall garden

Wed., July 25, 2018

The heat of summer has finally arrived, and our vegetable gardens have taken off. With the onset of hot weather though, most cool season crops like peas, spinach, lettuce and arugula are fading fast. No more sugar pod peas to snack on as you walk through the garden.

News >  Home and garden

Gardening: Nocturnal mammal the bat can be enticed to hang around but beware of rabies-carrying animals

UPDATED: Wed., July 18, 2018

Downtown Austin, Texas, is known for nightlife of live music, dancing and dining. I got to enjoy some of that while I was at a conference there last week.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Deep watering paramount during heat of summer

Thu., July 12, 2018

In some ways the stretch of recent cooler weather has been great for the gardens. Plants have stayed in bloom a little longer, and with the timely rains, it hasn’t been too hard to keep things watered. That all could change during the hot season.

News >  Spokane

Gardening: Plant milkweeds to help monarch butterflies

Thu., June 28, 2018

Yes, we have monarch butterflies in Spokane, and they need our help to survive and flourish, Pat Munts writes.